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WASHINGTON : US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday China is steadily acquiring sophisticated military capabilities and urged it to be more open about its intentions.
Gates said an annual Pentagon report on Chinese military power has been completed and tracks China's steady and substantial investments in its military.
"I'm happy to report that I don't think it does any arm-waving. I don't think it does any exaggeration of the threat," Gates said of the report, which is to be released Friday.
"But it paints a picture of a country that is devoting substantial resources to the military and developing, as I say, some very sophisticated capabilities," he said.
The report gives assessments of Chinese military strategies and intentions, but Gates said, "It would be nice to hear firsthand from the Chinese how they view these things."
"We wish that there were greater transparency, that they would talk more about what their intentions are, what their strategies are," he said.
The Pentagon has long criticized Beijing for hiding the true scale of its defence spending, estimating that it is spending two to three times more on its military than the 35 billion it publicly acknowledges.
Last year's report concluded that while Taiwan appears to be the near-term focus of China's military spending, the build-up poses a potential threat to the United States over the longer term.
"Without ascribing intent or not to any particular potential adversary, the most important thing from my perspective is for the United States military to stay well out ahead of any potential adversary so that we are properly prepared, should somebody's intent change, to deal with that threat when it rises," General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. - AFP/de
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